


Haunted

by transpeterparker



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, ghost - Freeform, haunted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:36:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2558204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transpeterparker/pseuds/transpeterparker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma has almost gotten over the death of her True Love. Her True Love, whom she'd lost to the snow queen almost a year prior. She believed she was getting better and so did her family. But now she keeps seeing him. Everywhere. He keeps showing up everywhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

George Michael's "Faith" blasted in Emma's headphones as she ran her sadness away on the purple Planet Fitness treadmill. She was murmuring the chorus and looked down to see how far she'd gone. 

Only 2 miles. She had to do three more before she got Henry from Regina's. She had a running schedule set up for herself ever since she'd ditched her depression at their-her apartment two months ago. Five miles on Mondays and Wednesdays, today being Monday, and three miles on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fridays she spent at his grave, talking to him about her week. Weekends meant Netflix binge watching. 

She looked up from her treadmill and saw him. Just sitting over by the water, like it was normal. He looked up at her and just winked and went back to reading the paper. 

She stared at him for what seemed like hours before she blinked, and he was gone. Gone. Like he was supposed to be. Buried six feet under. 

But there he was, staring at her. Acting as if Ingrid, the snow queen, hadn't crushed his heart to icy ash right in front of her. As if he wasn't dead. 

Emma's phone rang, ending her music and disrupting her thoughts. 

Henry. 

She picked up. "Hey kiddo." 

"Hey mom. When are you gonna come get me? Robin and Regina have reservations and Roland's already with Marian." 

She looked down at her watch. 6:30 p.m. She was almost and hour late to pick him up. 

"Sorry kid, I lost track of time. Be there in a few." She told him and hung up. 

She changed out of her sweaty workout clothes and put on her red leather jacket. Out of habit, she reached in the pocket and rubbed the small square of leather left over from Killian's jacket. 

She missed him. He was her happy ending and he was so promptly taken from her. It just wasn't fair to either of them. But fairness was never in the cards for the Savior. 

She finished getting her gym bag packed, and headed out to her yellow bug and drove off to the Mayor's mansion.

She was driving down Main Street and peeked out of the window, over at Granny's. She noticed someone sitting at their table. No one ever sat at their table, even when there was a full house. They just respected that it was their special spot, not to be touched, especially after he passed. 

But some jerk clearly didn't care for respecting the dead, she thought, well until she saw the jerk's face. Of course it was him. Sitting there with that same smug look on his face, drinking his rum, mocking her. 

A car passed in front of him and blocked her view of him. The car moved and he was gone. 

Damn that pirate and his random reappearances.


	2. Chapter 2

It'd been a week since she first saw him. She'd seen him two other times that week: once at Henry's soccer game and again at the cemetery, watching her as she put flowers on his grave, and cursing him out for stalking her. 

It had to be her imagination acting up. She just needed more sleep and maybe another visit to Dr. Hopper. Yeah. Then this could all blow over. It would all be okay again. 

Who was she kidding? Nothing was ever going to be okay again. He wasn't ever coming back to her. He was gone and he was never coming back. 

CSCSCSCSCSCSCSCSCSCSCSCSCSCSCS

She was at the grocery store the next time she saw him. 

She was picking up pop tarts for Henry for breakfast and she dropped the box. She reached over to pick it up, but another hand beat her to it. 

She looked up and her green eyes met his blue ones and got lost in the ocean of his eyes. She looked at the rest if his face, his thick scruff on his cheeks, his messy black hair, the eyeliner surrounding his eyelids. It was him. 

"You!" He looked startled. "You-you stop following me!" She shouted at him. 

He reached out for her and she stepped back and ran off, leaving the box of pop tarts in his hand. 

She ran to her car and drove as fast as she could. She pulled up to her parents apartment complex and hopped out of her car. She stormed inside and upstairs. 

She banged her fist on the door and her mother opened up to a disheveled Emma with red puffy eyes, tears threatening to fall.

Snow asked no questions and just embraced her daughter and walked her inside.

She sat Emma on the couch and began to prepare two cups of cocoa and cinnamon. "You wanna talk about it Emma?" She asked sweetly. 

"I keep-I keep seeing him..." Snow froze and almost dropped the mugs. Her face went pale and she brought Emma the drink. 

"Everywhere. I see him everywhere. At the gym, Granny's, the grocery store. Everywhere." Emma buried her face in her hands. 

"I know you miss him Emma, but he's gone. You're gonna have to accept that. Whoever you're seeing is either not him or figment of your imagination. I'm sorry honey, but he's gone." Snow rubbed her back. 

"Today I was at the grocery store, and I dropped the pop tarts. He picked them up. Mom he picked them up." Snow's heart warmed at 'mom', but was sad for her daughter.


	3. Chapter 3

She sat on a bench by the docks. This was somewhere she would expect him to be, but he wasn't. Nevermind. She heard a creak and turned her head to see him seated next to her. 

"You're not really here." She sighed and turned her head. 

"What makes you say that?" He replied in his thick accent. 

God she missed that accent. It flowed like honey and she melted every time heard him. It had been a year since she heard his sweet voice. It had been too long. 

"You're dead. Your heart was crushed right in front of me. There's no surviving that." She argued, fighting back tears. 

"I'm not going to lie to you love, I really am dead. But that doesn't make me any less real. I'm right here. I'm here for you like I've always been." He smiles at her. 

"You know, that running has really paid off. I mean look at you, love, you're even more beautiful than when I last saw you." Her heart clenched at the mention of her last sight of him. 

She wanted to reach out for him, grab his hand. Tell him everything was going to be alright. But she was afraid that if she tried to touch him, it wouldn't work and she'd be reminded that he was really gone. 

Killian stared and admired her beauty. Taking in every detail, inhaling her, taking a mental picture of her. He admired every little flaw, every scar, every freckle. Every tear falling down her pale face, dropping into the bench below them. 

He wanted to reach out and wipe them away. To pepper her with kisses until she stopped crying. And to hold her in his arms, inhaling her lovely scent. 

But he couldn't. That's what pained him the most, to see his Swan upset because of him and he not be able to do a single thing. 

He could see the pain in her eyes, the trouble he'd caused. 

"I love you Emma. I'm so sorry I left you, love. And I'm even more sorry I can't come back. I miss you. I miss Henry. I miss our whole confusing family. I need you to tell Henry how much I loved him, okay. How I would of loved being like a father to him." Tears were streaming down both of their faces now. 

"And I need you to ask your father for the box. Don't specify anything. He'll understand. I love you Emma. I love you so much, darling. One day we will be reunited. One day our souls will be one again. Goodbye Swan. Goodbye, Emma." He blew her a kiss and walked off in direction of the water. He walked off the beach, into the water, and faded away into the mist.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter made me so sad to write. Thank you all for reading!

After the events by the water, Emma started to move on. She was starting to let him go. She tried finding love again, but it was no use, her heart belonged to another. 

She went directly to her father from the docks. He asked why she had been crying, but she didn't answer, she just flung herself into his arms. She cried for an hour before she could speak coherent sentences again. 

Then she asked him for the box, which resulting in him looking like he'd seen a ghost. He didn't respond, instead, he got up and disappeared into his bedroom, returning with a wide, black box. She took the box and headed home. 

When Emma got home with the box, she didn't have the nerve to open it. The box sat on her nightstand for 8 years, serving as a reminder of what could have been. 

A week after Henry's 22nd birthday, Emma finally found the nerve to open it. 

She had just finished her phone call with Henry, and he'd convinced her that'd been long enough. She walked into her bedroom, their bedroom, and walked over to the box picking it up.

Memories flooded her mind. 

She remembers him jumping around like a jellybean, talking her ear off about how this was the perfect apartment. He almost gave the realtor a heart attack by popping in and out of rooms, surprising them every corner they turned. 

She remembers him carrying her bridal-style into the apartment, Henry in tow making disgusted faces whenever they kissed. 

She remembers his romantic, candlelit dinners he would prepare for her out of nowhere. How he would be so nervous as she took a bite of his new dish. 

She remembers how he went after the snow queen by himself, not leaving her anything but a text. 

She remembers running out to the abandoned ice cream truck, watching her hand pull out of his chest. She'd ran to his side, he told her how much he loved her, but was cut off mid sentence as Ingrid crushed his heart to ash. 

She remembers his funeral. The white roses littered through the crowd. She remembers wearing his jacket, his old one, and crying as she have his eulogy. Watched as he was lowered into the ground. 

Tears were falling now and she hadn't even opened the box yet. 

She slowly pulled open the lid to reveal two rings. One golden with a hook engraved into the top and one silver with a diamond swan perched atop. Upon further inspection, she found inscriptions. 

'Swan' was written in cursive across hers, and 'Captain' across his. 

Tears were streaming down her face. She slipped both rings on her fingers. "About bloody time..." She whispered to herself. 

She put on a facade for her family, but the pain had returned and was excruciating. Almost exactly a year later, Emma was so far into her hole of sadness, that she died of a broken heart. 

She was laid to rest at age 38. 

CSCSCSCSCSCSCSCSCSCSCS 

It was Henry's wedding day. Two years had passed since his mother had left, but the pain was still fresh. He and Grace had been married only 3 hours prior by Archie. 

Henry didn't want a huge fairytale wedding, so he and grave decided on just family. Therefore, it turned into a huge fairytale wedding. Jefferson walked Grace down the isle, wearing his best hat of course, and gave his daughter away to his soon to be son-in-law. 

They'd just cut the cake and had their first dance, so Henry sat down to take a break. He closed his eyes and wished his mother, father, and Killian could be here for him. He bit back the tears and opened his eyes. 

He scanned the room out of boredom and did a double take when he saw two familiar faces. He almost spat out his champagne and saw his mother and Killian feeding each other cake by the bar. 

They looked over and waved at him, Emma blew him a kiss. He closed his eyes for a second to take every thing in, when he opened his eyes they were gone. 

Henry wasn't saddened by this, instead he felt happier, knowing that they'd found each other at last.


End file.
